“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Burton Albion, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to Colchester United this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Blackburn Rovers have kept their man, and Burton Albion go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burton Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Burton Albion, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Burton Albion are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ben Thompson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Caylan Vickers signs something — a contract at Burton Albion or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jason Sraha has written the date down.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
The mood at Burton Albion has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Burton Albion is running low.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Burton Albion, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Burton Albion have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Burton Albion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Everybody at Burton Albion saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 40 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Joaquín Martínez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Burton Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Burton Albion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Joaquín Martínez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Burton Albion are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Joaquín Leites and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” James Harvey after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Julian Larsson is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Burton Albion squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Burton Albion lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Joaquín Martínez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Will Collar’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Burton Albion needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alex Pritchard provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Caylan Vickers did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Caylan Vickers has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Northampton Town scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
In brief
SquadBurton Albion are still strangers to each other
The offer went to Everton this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Millar Matthews-Lewis and Burton Albion agree another 4 years.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Burton Albion will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Still no offer on the table, and Ciaran Gilligan’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Alex Pritchard is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.